


Souls A'fire

by tameimpala



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Character Study, Episode: s02e02 Everybody Loves a Clown, Episode: s02e21 All Hell Breaks Loose, Episode: s05e10 Abandon All Hope..., Episode: s05e22 Swan Song, Episode: s07e01 Meet the New Boss, Episode: s07e04 Defending Your Life, Fire, Flashbacks, Gen, Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, Kid Winchesters, Mentions of Mary Winchester - Freeform, One Shot Collection, Pre-Series, Psychological Trauma, Snapshots, Time Skips, Vignette, Young Dean Winchester, Young Sam Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-18
Updated: 2016-04-18
Packaged: 2018-06-01 07:13:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6508051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tameimpala/pseuds/tameimpala
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Winchesters had been bathed in fire from the beginning... </p><p>  <i>His father would return to ashes... because, in the end, that's all they ever were. </i><br/><i>Just ashes. Embers. </i></p><p>  <span class="small">A collection of short fics taking place through the seasons and pre-series, all centred around the theme of fire. </span></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. We are all Embers (Part One)

**Author's Note:**

> I've had a collection of short stories, one-shots, codas and character studies all based around the significance of fire knocking about for a long time so I tried to organise them into a coherent fic!
> 
> The title of the work is a **Matt Corby** song by the same name and the chapter titles are from a **Just Jack** song called _Embers_

* * * * * * *

  


__

Oh he got poison in his lungs  


  
__

And it will become undone  


  
__

Some sort of freak that feels no pain  


  
__

Walk through fire like it feels like rain  


  


 

* * * * * * *

  


_The flames did not solely eat up Mary Winchester alone, they consumed everything that had been lovingly placed in her son's nursery with no hesitation. Clothes and curtains, toys and stuffed bears along with flesh and bone…_

  


 

…In the borderlands of sleep and consciousness, Dean still could feel the heat engulfing him.

Flames biting at his heels and a heavy warm bundle in his arms... 

 

  


* * * 

  


** 1993 **

  


It was a chemical process. Burning. That's what Sam found out in his 4th grade science class. Two atoms or molecules that combine and release energy. His teacher lit the charred Bunsen burner in front of him and Sam watched the cobalt unearthly flames leap up hungrily. He had never seen blue fire before. Only violent red. 

Dean found Sam playing with their father's lighter that night. He kept flicking it on and off, transfixed, watching the yellow flame spark and jump up, only to be extinguished. He snatched it away from the 10 year old and asked him, in a voice that betrayed how terrified he felt, _just what the hell he was playing at?_

Sam merely looked at him. 

  


"I saw blue flames today Dean." 

 

  


* * * 

  


****

**1991 - Part I**

 ********

  


"Don't look into the flames son. It’ll send you crazy. Whatever you do, don't look into the flames." 

Dean followed his father into the crematorium, his gun raised high. He hadn't grown much over the summer, much to John Winchester's dismay. His oldest son still looked like a kid. _That's because he is one, he's a twelve year old kid..._ remarked a chiding voice in his head. He had no alcohol with which to silence that voice with, instead he had to push it deep down inside by sheer force of will alone. 

No drinking on the job. That was one of his rules, but drinking after the job... _Oh God yes._ That was a necessity. 

And it certainly would be needed tonight. 

He looked down at Dean, at the way his hands slightly trembled on his freshly cut Sawed-Off. The boy had ran into their motel room the other night with the gun proudly held out for his father to inspect. God only knows where he had found a hacksaw. John quickly looked away from his pale faced son, swallowing his own fear. 

Bobby had been busy, Caleb too. They were the only hunters he was on speaking terms with at the moment, he'd somehow (he knows how) managed to piss off just about everybody else. 

He had a habit of burning bridges. 

Dean was the only game in town. His twelve year old son... On this hunt? What the hell was he thinking? _No, this is good..._ A new voice chimed in and he knew it instantly. _This will **toughen** him up._ It was the voice that rationalized all of his questionable decisions. It sounded exactly like his old drill sergeant... 

_"No pain no gain Winchester." the stoic Marine assured him as the muscles in his arms strained under his weight and screamed for mercy from the endless pushups..._

Since the 2nd of November 1983, there had been far too much pain and not nearly enough gain. 

As they walked silently through the buildings dark hallways the voice spoke again in that familiar southern drawl; _It's good the kid is here, face your fears Winchester. His and yours..._

It was right. Fear was a weakness and it had rooted itself inside Dean when he was 5 years old and running out their burning house with his baby brother in his arms. It had made a home inside John too and it had to be stamped out. For good.

There was an unearthly orange glow emanating from the far end of the corridor. John took aim and reminded Dean once more, "Eyes on their faces." The boy nodded and turned towards the intensifying light. 

Two female figures bearing burning torches walked together in synchronicity towards the father and son. From afar they looked quite beautiful, but as they came closer John watched as their features turned and twisted. Their skin became translucent and pale, delicate mouths turned into sinister snarls... The Nymphs blue eyes changed to a malevolent red, the flames of their torches danced inside them... 

"Where is Hecate?" They spoke together in the same deadly whisper. 

He had taken out that bitch yesterday evening and had come back for her companions. 

"Dead." John breathed, his mouth full of venom. "Your Goddess is dead." 

An ear-piercing shriek emitted from both their mouths, revealing their thin pointed teeth and causing the father and son to keel over in pain. 

When they re-aimed their guns the Lampads were gone, but the glow of their torches came from behind the two hunters... 

Both John and Dean turned towards the light. But where John kept his eyes down to avoid the unearthly fire of their torches, Dean's glaze fell directly onto them. 

"That's right child, look into the flames." The Lampads coaxed sweetly with wide smiles on their sharp iridescent faces. 

John stared down at Dean in horror to see his son completely hypnotized by the blazing fire that the Nymphs wielded. The same unearthly flames that burned in the creature’s eyes now danced in Dean's. 

A smoking tear fell down his son's cheek, leaving a red trail behind. But even through the madness that was now burning in his body he still had the strength to pull the trigger on his newly customized gun. 

The Lampad in front of Dean dropped her torch in shock as blue blood blossomed through her satin dress. The blazing wooden stick fell to the floor, catching on her floor length dress and causing it to go up in flames along with the shrieking Nymph herself. 

Her sister wailed and screeched alongside her, momentarily lost in grief and pain. John aimed his own shot gun at her face and she turned around to look at him. 

The fire had left her eyes. She smiled at John bitterly. 

"He is lost to the flames now." Hissed the Lampad. 

In one fluid motion she stepped back and held her torch to her identical satin dress. The fire leapt up around her greedily and in seconds she was devoured. 

  


John didn’t watch. He knelt down to look at his son. 

  


Dean was lying on the floor, sweat plastering his hair to his head and scorching tears burning his cheeks. Blindly thrashing and screaming. 

He screamed all the way back to the motel. His eyes clamped shut. 

"It has them! The fire- It's alive, it's eating them! DAD PLEASE IT'S EATING THEM THEY'RE BURNING!" 

  


He screamed himself hoarse for two days, bursting two blood vessels in his vocal cords, before John found the right ritual to cure him. 

  


 

* * * 

  


****

**1983**

  


They sat on the Impala looking up at the smouldering ruins of their family home. The edges of Sammy's blanket were singed black, evidence of the fire’s daring attempt to claim his youngest son along with his wife. He struggled and writhed in John's arms, rebelliously full of life when just a few moments ago the child was so close to death.

In stark contrast both he and Dean were silent and solemn, however John could feel his eldest shivering slightly beside him. He was still in his thin pyjamas. John Winchester, the freshly-made widow, could have draped his coat around him. 

But that meant moving. 

And letting go of Sammy. 

They watched the firefighters leave their house and ready a silver gurney. Suddenly a fireman appeared in front of John, sympathy etched in his face along with tiredness and something that told John that in the wake of all this, he just wanted to get back home to his own family. 

The man would probably look in on his sleeping children when he returned, shed his jacket and boots, crawl into bed alongside his wife and thank God he wasn't that poor guy who sat with a traumatized kid and a fussing baby on top of the only thing they owned with a roof. 

Yeah. Thank God. _Thank that fucker._

"Sir we're... ahem," His voice dropped to a low whisper, "...bringing her out. You might want to take your boys inside." 

_Inside where?_

Dean shifted beside him and he noticed Mrs Gallagher from next door hovering above him like an irritating fly. One he really wanted to swat. 

"We can look after the boys John-" She reassured, her arms stretching out. 

"No." He croaked forcefully. A sudden immense feeling of protectiveness stirred inside of him, his grip tightened around Sammy and his right hand extended over Dean's shoulders, pulling him close. Something had taken his wife away from him tonight. She died on the ceiling with her stomach slashed open whilst flames engulfed her. 

Nothing, human or otherwise, was taking his sons. 

 

* * * 

  


****

**2006**

  


They stood side by side, gazing at their handmade pyre. Tears cascaded down both their faces and Dean felt a compulsion to comfort his younger brother. But Sammy wasn't the six month old baby he was when their mother died. He had been too small to understand, too young to remember… 

Wrapped inside those white bandages lay their father. John Winchester, a man who had battled deities, monsters and demons… and he was burning on a pyre. Dean watched as flames licked at the covered body and he felt a sudden compulsion to drag it away from the flames. It wasn't right, it wasn't right at all. The body, empty and dead though it maybe, was all they had left of him. They were burning him to dust, to ashes, and Dean couldn't take it. 

They were erasing him. 

The man had watched his wife burn on the nursery ceiling whilst he looked on powerlessly and now they were subjecting him to the same fiery end. He knew his father was long past pain now but he still couldn't help but imagining John's muffled cries from within his wrappings, the building heat and smoke suffocating him. 

But the body didn't move. Didn't even twitch. He waited for his name to be called, a cough-laiden cry for help maybe? 

No sounds issued from the pyre except the sharp brutal cracking noise of burning wood... 

  


_"The fire vaporizes Dean. When you burn something like wood, that vaporizes too. If there's too much water or steam trapped in the wood it will exert pressure and pop it. That's what causes the crack. See? Nothing to be afraid of. Oh and I'm sorry Sam got so inspired by our class demonstration yesterday, I did warn all my students that fire is not a toy Dean. I stressed that point strongly. But keep an eye on him please, he seemed a little too fascinated by the fire..."_

  


Sam was fascinated by the flames as they engulfed their father's body. It was the right thing to do, a hunter's funeral. It's what their father would have wanted. Whilst he stood with his struggling brother watching his body fade from existence, Sam hoped that John Winchester was somewhere better than this earth upon which he had fought on all his life.

It was a childish belief, but he held onto it. However that hope didn't seem to stop the dull sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach that told him that maybe John was in a worse place, one where he wouldn't escape the fire that was devouring his body right here in a clearing by a small forest... A place where much worse fates awaited him. 

Sam pushed these thoughts aside and lost himself in the grief that lay heavily across both of the brothers like a swollen grey cloud. Yet somehow, in the all-consuming yellow and orange he could see redemption. _Purification._ It was a warrior's funeral, John Winchester was shrouded in fire in death as he was in life. His father would return to ashes... because, in the end, that's all they ever were. 

Just ashes. Embers. 

Sam isn't the six month old baby he was when their mother died. No. He is 23 years old and he feels 100. 

 

 

* * * 

  


****

**2007**

  


Tucked away off a dusty back road lay the Roadhouse. As soon as Dean took the turn he saw the rising smoke and his mouth went bone dry. 

It was gone. The wooden hut of a building was gone. Only one defiant corner had remained upright, a battered up and scorched letter 'R' the only clue to a sign that once proclaimed Harvelle's Roadhouse. 

All that was left was smoking wood and charred remains. A single boot cladded leg lay on top of the rubble, along with gutted shotguns and rifles. 

Bullets don't work on fire. He knew that better than anyone. These hunters had spent their lives tracking down monsters and creatures. Hunting pure evil. Something real, tangible. To be taken out by something with no rules, that they didn’t have the correct tools to fight… The irony was not lost on Dean.

They searched through the debris. Looking for what they didn't want to find.

But there was no Ellen. No Jo. No... 

A seared hand rested on an equally blackened beam, almost reaching out to him. Wrapped around the wrist lay a silver tarnished watch, parts of it glinted in the light. 

Dean turned away. 

"Oh, Ash, damn it." 

His eyes darted everywhere. Acrid smoke caught in his throat, god the smell, the bodies... 

"Dean? Kid, you okay?" 

Bobby's voice sounded so far away, yet somehow his arms caught him as Dean’s legs started to give way and nearly sent him face first into the soot-carpeted ground. 

And all he could see was a burnt hand, a burnt hand with a silver watch. 

 

* * * 

  


 

****

**2009**

  


“Maybe we should go back to Carthage.” Sam suggested tentatively. 

Dean let out a bitter bark of laughter and took another swig of his beer, “And why the hell would we want to go there again Sammy? It’s not exactly a great vacation spot, especially since the devil came to town.”

“Dean...” The younger man had sat on scratchy linen bedsheets in this dusty run-down motel room watching his brother attempting to make it through two six packs of cheap off-brand beers that he’d bought from the gas station for the best part of two hours. Castiel had beamed them back to Bobby’s, minus two people. They burned their pseudo-family photo, maybe it was for closure, maybe it was to honour Ellen and Jo’s memory… But to Sam it felt like they were ridding themselves of the mother and daughter’s piercing eyes that, in light of their deaths, now seemed accusing and guilt-inducing. Two more names had been added to their list, a list that he knew Dean wore round his neck like an albatross. After Bobby threw the photo into the fire his brother had turned away from them, walked out of the room, grabbed his stuff and set off towards this motel- only stopping at the Gas n’ Sip to pick up his much needed alcohol. Sam had followed him wordlessly all the way.

“Maybe we need, maybe Ellen and Jo need...” He attempted, but Dean abruptly cut him off.

“Need? They’re dead, plain and simple. They don’t need anything. You saw it, those flames practically blew up the entire street. Even if I wanted to take that trip back there to- to do what? Recover their bodies?” Dean knew that this was what Sam was getting at... God, the kid had an unhealthy obsession with so-called “closure”. He seemed to think it would fix them, going back to that graveyard of a town. As if everything had to be returned, come full circle, as if there was some order to this chaos and pain… _If God is up there right now, or anywhere at all, he sure has a twisted sense of humour._ Dean slammed his arm down hard on the chipped pine table in frustration at the damn apocalypse and just about everything in between, sending beer to come flying out of it’s battered-up can. 

He replaced it with another without a second thought, reaching over to access the six pack that occupied the chair opposite him, tore open the tab and poured a mouthful of the nasty smelling beer down is throat. “There’s nothing there, nothing left of…” Dean stopped and took another long gulp of the lukewarm liquid…

_He was stood in a graveyard, watching Sam bury his father’s dog tags in front of a tombstone that was meant for Mary Winchester. Except she didn’t lie in the ground, it was barren and empty beneath Sam’s feet because…_

“There’s no bodies to bury Sam.”

 

 

* * * 

  


 

****

**2011**

  


A cold insipid hand reached into his pocket and withdrew a black object. Dean Winchester’s Zippo lighter had sent many bones aflame and in turn sent many a restless spirit packing. But today it was going to send him on a one way ticket back downstairs. But hey? Why not start as you mean to go on, in a flaming fireball of death. 

He knew why Jo was doing this, and more importantly that she was being forced into doing this…

_“Some kind of twisted eye for an eye..”_

But it still felt right. You just couldn’t argue with the poetic justice of the whole thing. He wondered how Sammy would have slaughtered him if that ancient Egyptian God had sicked him after Dean instead of Jo. He’d killed and hurt his brother in many ways, some Sam himself didn't know about, so at least he would have had a plethora of memories to choose from. Their father had sold his soul for Dean, which had turned out to be a very pointless exercise considering he ended up in hell anyway 2 years later- he also could have been a contender for Dean's executioner. Then there was Jo herself, who had been torn up by hellhounds meant for him and then he just abandoned her and her mother in that hardware store, holding a fuse. Cas was gone now too because Dean didn’t save him fast enough, couldn’t work out what he’d been up to with Crowley until it was too late. The hunter had added that, pride of place, on his list of his failures. And recently he’d killed that Kitsune Amy because… Well, he wasn’t so sure why anymore. He wasn’t even sure what Ellen and Jo had died for either.

Or his father.

Or Cas.

Or even his mother.

What purpose had it all served?

Had it all lead up to a dead girl reaching into his pocket, withdrawing his own lighter like a sword, to send him back down to that rack again by blowing his war-torn body to smithereens?

“He’s making me do this.” Jo tells him, there’s a glint of pleading in her deep brown eyes.

“It’s okay.” Dean reassures her. Because it really is.

She reaches up and cups the side of his face. He can’t help but lean in to the icy yet loving touch.

The hunter closes his eyes and waits for the explosion of heat and flames that are sure to follow.

But instead he feels a presence leave him, and the hollowness in the pit of his stomach returns. Dean opens his eyes to an empty room and the site of his lighter lying on the floor in front of him.

Gas has been pumping around the room for some time now. The air is thick with the smell of it.

“Jo?”

He reaches down and picks up his Zippo...

  


Just one click.

Then flames. _Then escape._

  


“Dean? Are you still in there?” Comes Sam’s voice through the door, breathless and laced with worry.

Dean sighs, laughing slightly. It’s Sammy, here to pull him unknowingly from the brink once more. He looks down and pockets the lighter.

  


It’s not his time.

Not today at least.

  


 

 

* * * 

  


 

****

**2011 (Three weeks ealier)**

  


Dean was right. Hell felt different, it was different from the pain of hunting, from the weight of his father's burdens, even from living it's self. 

_He was stone number one, and they would build on it._

These days Sam’s hope and trust were thinning fast. His sanity was a length of rope. Lucifer held a cheap dime-store lighter next to it. The rope was fraying and he was hanging on by a single taught thread.

“Oh no.” Came his brother’s strained voice from beside him.

There were no white rabbits as Dean brought the Impala to a stop. But Singer's auto salvage yard was a smoking ruin. 

Sam dug his thumb into his bandaged left palm and pressed till he felt warm blood. But didn't flicker and jolt like Lucifer had done, the old house remained a charred black husk. Red flecks, still burning wood, peppered the skin of the building. The place was completely gutted. 

Dean's face wore a look of blind worry that terrified Sam to the bone. It was all coming apart. Cas was gone, Sam was losing his mind and Bobby... They couldn't lose him too, they didn't deserve to lose another to the flames. 

There was no sign of him in the rubble.

 _No news is good news..._

That was bullshit. They'd lived with their father's desperate search for stone-cold leads on their mother's murderer long enough to know that silence isn't comforting. 

  


Sure, Hell felt different. But sometimes Sam would pick Hell over days like this.

  


  


* * * * * * *

  



	2. From the Same Fire (Part Two)

  


* * * * * * *

  


__

_Most people think I burn hot._

  


Heat. Fire. _Burning._ All things associated with hell. Associated with evil. _With him._ Sam's flashbacks were tinted crimson, he smelt ash and brimstone. But the devil he knew, that he remembered, breathed frost onto a window pane. He supposed that ice wasn't as fitting as fire for his own personal torture. After all, he was meant to burn along with his mother in that nursery. 

  


Infernos are tailor-made for him. 

  


* * * 

  


****

**2010**

 ****

  


It wasn’t Adam. He knew that. It wasn’t Sammy either.

  


But even though he barely knew the kid, barely even spoke to the resurrected, non-ghoul, version of his half-brother… He was still his father’s son, and John had tried his hardest to keep him away from their way of life. With good reason too. But the past had come for him, twice. 

And it had cost Adam his life, twice.

  


A glass bottle with a flaming rag hit him square in the chest and instantly fire spread and leapt around him hungrily. The scream that came out of his mouth when the holy fire engulfed him, it was Michael’s scream… But he could only see Adam as his skin crackled and blistered whilst the flames overwhelmed his body...

Dean remembered Sam’s harsh words about Adam and involving him in the family business, _“He’s a Winchester. He’s already cursed.”_

Adam and Michael were gone. Only four of them remained in the graveyard. Soon to be just one.

  


Sam turned to Castiel with hellfire in his eyes. In _Lucifer’s_ eyes.

 

* * * 

  


****

**2014**

 ****

  


The haze of misty grey stopped swirling as two hazel eyes finally adjusted to their new location. Their owner directed them upwards to stare at the hole in the ceiling where he had fallen through only moments before. Sam Winchester kicked rumble and rotten floorboards aside so he could stand.

"DEAN!?" He cried, coughing roughly as the smoke entered his throat. Panic started to course through his body, a panic that betrayed his words a few days earlier… _If you wanna work lets work. If you wanna be brothers…_ And here they were working. Partners. Business-like. 

But now there was smoke, and Dean wasn’t answering.

  


He finally got up from the debris-laden floor, the fall hadn't been that bad but bad enough to knock him out momentarily. The thick gray smoke was coming from upstairs, where he guessed Dean still was. Ignoring the pain in his side Sam ran towards the stairs, all the while shouting for Dean, praying to hear a Sammy in return. Then again, he hadn't heard his brother call him Sammy in a while.

As he rounded the corner the smoke got thicker and the heat more intense. He could hear the flickering of flames coming from the room to the far left, the room Sam had fallen through. He tried one more call of _"DEAN!"_ before he grabbed the door handle only to recoil in pain at the white hot heat of it. Without thinking Sam started to kick the door down, it only took two hits before it flung open, weakened by the heat of the fire. 

Sam stared through the flames, trying desperately to see a figure moving... One body was on the floor, burnt to a crisp. 

The rugaru they had been hunting.

  


Dean must have finally cornered it after Sam's attempt had resulted in him falling through the floor. His eyes burned from the smoke but he kept them open as he searched for his brother, his panic threatening to overpower his sense. Then after what seemed like a lifetime he saw Dean huddled up in a corner, his hands shielding his face, making no effort to get out. 

"DEAN! DEAN YOU HAVE TO MAKE YOUR WAY OVER TO ME! COME ON!!" Screamed Sam over the crackling of the growing blaze, praying that Dean would jump into action. But he remained still.

Seeing no other option Sam started to slowly make his way through the flames. The floor, which already had its weak spots, was in danger of fully giving away. 

Eventually he had made it to Dean. His brother was curled up like a child and Sam was more scared than he'd been in years. He knelt down in front of the older hunter and prized his arm away from his face, Dean jumped at the touch.

"Come on, we have to get out of here, please!" Cried Sam, Dean's eyes were clamped shut and he was shaking badly. 

Fires. Fires had haunted Dean's nightmares since he was five years old.

Sam placed his hands either side of his brother’s smoke blackened face. 

"Please Dean, please look at me!" Sam pleaded, shaking Dean's head roughly. His green eyes flew open in panic, darting around at the sight of flames surrounding them. Some kind of protective instinct must have kicked in as he tried to push Sam away with considerable force to get him to leave the room, but he held on and used the momentum to pull Dean up with him and started to drag him towards the door. Despite himself Dean buried his face against Sam's chest, his whole body shaking with stifled coughs and fear. Sam got them out and down the stairs before he heard the ceiling starting to give way. Breaking out in a run they crashed onto the grass outside and struggled for breath. 

  


Sam's coughs started to even out after a few minutes but Dean's whole body was seizing up, his legs jack-knifing up as he choked.

"It's okay," Said Sam as he turned Dean onto his side, rubbing his back in what he hoped was a comforting gesture. Dean violently threw up on the floor, his whole body continued shivering and jerking. 

“Dean? Dean you with me?” Sam asked as he hauled his older brother up to look in his ash covered face, Dean’s breath was ragged and his was still keeping eyes welded shut, “Hey come on, open your eyes for me.” Sam said softly, and it must have been this tone that brought Dean to open his eyes in surprise.

“Sammy?” Said his brother in a voice that sounded like broken glass, but still managed to sound completely taken aback that Sam was there. The younger man felt his chest tighten.

  


“ Yeah. I’m here. Let’s get you back home.” 

  


* * * 

  


****

**2007**

 ****

  


Dean Winchester had seen a lot of dead bodies in his life, far too many in fact. Over the years he liked to think he’d become desensitised to the sight of rotting corpses, or remains so mutilated you could barely make out any distinguishing features at all. But one thing that unsettled Dean, that completely scared the crap out of him, was burnt bodies. 

Seeing Zara Robinson’s charcoal scorched shell kneeling in her living room made his stomach turn violently. He averted his eyes and instead looked down at what his younger brother was examining. Sam held in his large hands an ornate golden photo frame which housed a family portrait. Zara, her heavyset husband and two small children in matching sweaters smiled up them. In reality here was nothing left of the blonde woman in the photograph who had a toothy grin and a firm grip on her children, instead all that remained was a burnt out body that was crouching in a prayer position on her polished parquet flooring. 

Suddenly a suppressed memory forced its way into the forefront of Dean’s mind. He remembered reading a battered-up library book about Pompeii to a six year old Sammy and turning a page to discover the awful images of people cowering in fear, choking on ash with nowhere to run. The then 10 year old Dean had been disturbed, but read on to appease his little brother. He instantly regretted that decision when he reached the last page which proclaimed **“Pompeii Today”** and showed the plaster casts of the citizen’s bodies that archaeologists had trapped them in, frozen forever like ash coated ghosts. He’d closed the book immediately and Sammy had cried, wanting to see the pictures, not knowing that Dean remembered the firefighters bringing out what was left of his mother. He could only imagine what her charred body must have looked like underneath that pristine white sheet. But in his nightmares she looked just like those powdery screaming figures.

  


“Weird, isn’t it?” Sam’s voice cut in, shaking him from his thoughts.

“What’s weird?” Asked Dean.

“These family portraits. How come they all have that strange painted background? You know, that one they use for yearbook photos? And why would you want a photo of your family in matching outfits with cheesy grins, pretending to be happy?”

“How do you know they’re pretending?”

Sam frowned at the photo and set it back down on the glossy oak cabinet to the left of him, taking care to place it in its allocated spot amongst the other equally staged photos.

“I thought you loved all this normal crap? Wouldn’t you have killed for a family portrait when we were kids?” Dean remarked as Sam turned his attention back to the corpse on the floor.

He knelt down in front of the body, but still answered his brother, “Not anymore. And like dad would have ever taken us to get our pictures taken, unless it was for a fake I.D.”

The older hunted chuckled, “I don’t know, we could have had one with Baby in- the three of us sitting on the hood… All the guns set up around us, a devils trap backdrop... You know, very tasteful Sammy.”

His brother muttered a sarcastic “Hilarious.” under his breath as he examined the body between them. 

  


Sam was completely oblivious to the fact that they had actually gotten their photograph taken at one of those family portrait studio stall set ups at a Walmart or something when he was a baby. Their mother had walked past it whilst they were shopping and paid for a photo of Dean holding Sam in front of a background that was practically identical to the one in the Robinson’s family portrait. He supposed the photograph had been destroyed in the fire, like everything else. Staring down at his over grown brother he wondered if he sound share that piece of information with him, that tiny snippet that proved they once lead a normal suburban life. 

  


But then again, that life had turned to ashes and in its wake it left the three remaining Winchesters unable to ever find or maintain that illusion of normality again. 

  


He pushed aside the barrage of memories and turned his attention to the burnt out husk of a corpse right by his feet.

  


 

* * * 

  


****

**1991- Part II**

 ****

  


“Dad when will it stop?”

“Not now Sam I’m trying to translate frigging ancient Greek on no sleep whilst your brother screams the cabin down.” John snapped harshly. He looked up at Sam in frustration and saw the worry that lined the child’s face, it make his own soften. He sighed heavily and raised his hand to his head with fatigue, “I’m sorry Sammy, just… Just take another damp towel for him please. And try and get him to drink something?”

Sam nodded and turned towards the sink. It filled him with shame but Sam was in no rush to get back to his brother. He couldn’t stand looking at the creature that yelled and writhed in agony in the small cabins only bedroom. But it was still Dean. It’s not a creature, not a thing, not even a monster. It’s Dean. _Just Dean._

He was still in there, yelling that he was being eaten by the heat and flames that didn’t exist in the sub-zero Michigan winter. Sam just wanted it to stop, it had been going on for two nights now and there was nothing he could do to help. His reassurances wouldn’t reach his brother, they couldn’t be heard over Dean’s endless screams. No amount of damp towels or ice packs cooled his ever-reddening skin down, the towels were warm in minutes and the ice packs melted on contact. Whatever this was, it was eating Dean up from the inside. And all Sam could do was sit there near this twisted boiling thing that had replaced his brother and feel more scared and more useless than he had ever done in his life.

He took a deep breath… _It’s Dean. Just Dean. He needs you…_ And stepped into the room.

Sam instantly felt the heat coming off his brother in droves. The restrains they’d used to try and stop him from writhing around so much where biting into Dean’s skin. He tossed his head to and throw, as if trying to rid his mind of whatever it was he was seeing. Soft mumbles of _“Burning…”_ slowly built up till he was shouting again, only this time Dean was screaming Sam’s name. He nearly dropped the cup of water he was holding.

  


“SAMMY! PLEASE- no, burning… NO it can’t I have to… STOP NO IT CAN’T HAVE HIM! I HAVE TO TAKE HIM” Sam stood transfixed watching Dean fight against the restraints, trying to get at something he couldn’t see. His voice sounded raw and it cracked on every word, the younger boy wondered how long people could scream until their voice gave out altogether. It must be painful for Dean to yell but he carried on regardless, “… get outside please… NO NO I SAVED HIM IT CAN’T TAKE HIM TOO! THE FIRE- SAMMY GET OUT OF THERE!”

  


He didn’t want to see this. Sam had witnessed his fair share of Dean’s nightmares in the past, of him trembling and muttering in his sleep, face pained and twitching every so often until eventually he shot up- suddenly alert, eyes wide and scared- his awakening punctuated with a small yelp of _“Mom!”_. It took him a few seconds to catch his breath, but after that he would simply compose himself then quickly glance over to Sam, who always feigned sleep for the sake of Dean. Once the older boy seemed satisfied that his little brother was okay and asleep he would lie back down and let his uneasily slumber take him again. But this? Viewing this pure scorching nightmare that Dean was trapped in unfold in front of his eyes, hearing him beg and cry for their father, _for their mother_ … And now Sam himself? It was more than the eight year old could stand. 

  


_It must be the monsters..._ A voice in Sam’s head piped up… _They got to him._ His worries that he voiced to his brother at Christmas also joined in... _"If monsters are real then they could get us. They could get me…"_ He’d only just discovered they exist and now Dean was turning into one?

  


No. He wasn’t. Don’t ever think that.

  


Just as he plucked up the courage to approach Dean and attempt to give him what little water was left in the paper cup he was clutching, he heard his dad shout triumphantly from the next room and practically run into Sam who was still stood at the doorway.

“Move Sammy, I’ve got it! I’ve got the cure!” An overwhelming feeling of relief kicked in and Sam felt it so strongly that everything before him seemed to fade, though his father’s voice cut through it harshly. “It’s not going to be pretty Sam, it might get bad. I don’t think you’ll want to see this.”

The youngest Winchester wanted to argue, to say that he didn’t care, he was staying with Dean no matter what. But he couldn’t. He knew Dad would fix it, after all his brother’s wholehearted belief in their father was so vast that Sam felt he could tap into it from time to time. But really he just couldn’t be in that room anymore witnessing the complete raw nerves of his brother. He was eight years old. _Eight._ He didn’t understand how all this worked, not really. And what his father was about to do, he didn’t want to see that either because Dad had said that it might get bad... As if the current condition Dean was in wasn’t the epitome of bad.

John had already started laying out candles and objects that looked suspiciously like charred bones. He hadn’t asked why Sam had been frozen in fear in front of his suffering older brother this whole time, he just kept working. And when he withdrew a silver blade from him pocket Sam finally left the room.

He ran to the sofa and wrapped his arms around his legs, pulling them in as close as he could, trying to make himself as small as possible. Maybe if he tried hard enough he would collapse into himself like one of those black holes in his galaxy book that Dean stole for him from the library. He wished he had the book near him now to take his mind off of everything but in was currently in the bedroom, with Dean and their father, and he had no intention of stepping foot in that room again till this nightmare was over.

Just as he tried to recite the planets in the solar system in an attempt to keep his mind off of everything that was happening, Dean’s yells reached a crescendo.

  


“DAD I CAN FEEL IT! THE FIRE I CAN’T GET OUT- PLEASE! DON’T LET IT GET ME!! DON’T YOU LET IT GET ME!”

  


_Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars…_

  


**"The first thing you have to know is we have the coolest dad in the world. He’s a superhero."**

  


_Jupiter, Saturn…_

  


Dean had so much faith in their family it seemed to ooze out of his every pore. But Sam…

**"If they got Mom, they can get Dad ,and if they get Dad, they can get us."**

  


_Uranus, Neptune…_

  


And one lie haunted him above all others..

 **"…Dad said the monsters under my bed weren’t real."**

  


If this was what the real monsters could do, what chance did they have?

  


* * * 

  


****

**2016**

  


Sam Winchester awoke from his sleep, finding himself in the safety of the Impala. He’d only meant to rest his eyes for a second but during the time he’d been asleep the exhausting day had turned to a calming peaceful night. After looking down at his watch he figured he had been out for at least three hours. Dean had insisted they keep driving rather than going to a motel, claiming that he would get them back to the bunker in time for breakfast if they just drove all night. Considering the state his neck was in from sleeping in the car Sam wished he had pushed the motel idea more now, the good people at Chevrolet obviously didn’t consider proper neck support an important factor when building the nearly 50 year old vehicle. Then again they probably didn’t build the car to be a home for a motherless family of 3, and then a parentless pair of brothers. 

It was the only steady home Sam had ever known, and contrary to popular belief, he loved the Impala just as much as Dean did.

The radio was still on but the volume was turned down, he could hear a song quietly bleeding through the silence of the night:

  


_Take me to the magic of the moment_

__

_On a glory night_

_Where the children of tomorrow dream away_

_in the wind of change_

  


Sam smiled to himself, of course Dean had turned to a soft rock station as he slept. He turned to look at his brother only to find the driver’s seat empty. Instead his gaze fell upon the opposite window and he realised they weren’t even moving. Sam opened the door and carefully unfolded himself from the car, eyes darting around for any sign of Dean. It was a warm humid night and he could already feel the bugs trying to get at his skin.

There was a faint glow coming from a field just off the road, Sam could make out a figure sitting beside it- poking at the light with a short stick. The hunter promptly jumped a ramshackle fence that all but broke in two when he put his weight on it and set off towards the person who was sat in the middle of a barren wheat field, prodding a small fire. Sure enough that person was his brother.

“Oh you’re awake.” Dean remarked as Sam loomed over him.

Sam was somewhat taken aback at how blasé Dean sounded, as if he’d just wandered into the bunker’s kitchen yawning and hunting for cereal.

“Y-Yeah I am.” He stared down at Dean, expecting an explanation and quickly realising he wasn’t going to get one. “Okay, what the hell Dean? What are you doing?” 

"Sitting by a fire.”

“I can see that, thanks. _Why_ are you sitting by a fire, I'm guessing there's a reason why you’ve made one?”

Dean reached behind him and brought out a small bag.

“You have got to be kidding me.” Sam said as he eyed the bag closely.

His brother was holding a bag of pink marshmallows.

“Deadly serious Sammy.” Replied Dean, eyes glinting from the light of the fire. “Saw them at the gas station, anyway we needed to burn our fed I.Ds from the job. I figured I might as well send them off in style.”

“You’re sure you’re feeling okay, you’re not dying are you?” The younger man sat down opposite his brother, the oddness of the scene he’d walked up to made him feel like he was still dreaming.

Dean chuckled. “Aren’t we always?” He passed Sam another small stick and opened the bag of marshmallows. Sam turned his head to look at the impala in the distance, sure that he was going to see his sleeping form still leaning against the cars cold glass window.

It was empty. Sam sighed and laughed too, figuring he might as well go with it. Whatever this was.

“Hey can you remember when we made that fire by Bobby’s cabin when we were kids?” Sam asked, reaching across to grab two marshmallows to place on his stick. Dean had even whittled the wood down to a spike at the end.

“Yeah, I nearly choked on those crappy s’mores when Dad showed up.” 

Sam remembered his father’s angry face appearing over the fire as he tried to make something edible out of their stale crumbly graham crackers, stolen pillow chocolates from the last motel they stayed in and marshmallows they’d spotted on the top shelf of the kitchen cupboards in the cabin. “He was really pissed. God, he barely ever let us have fun.”

“Well we did make a campfire right next to a log cabin Sam, it wasn’t the idea of the century. Anyway, it wasn’t about ruining our fun.”

“What was it about then?” He felt his voice starting to prickle as it always did whenever Dean displayed his uncanny knack of defending their father for just about anything.

“I started a fire Sam. You were just 5, like I was when…” His voice tapered off, his eyes looked into the flames as if he could gain some strength from them. He tried to push it away, the fear of the hungry orange and yellow. Out here in this empty field, with Sammy opposite him and marshmallows melting on the ends of their branches, the fire between them didn’t feel like a threat- he actually felt comfort from the warmth it provided and the glow it shone onto Sam’s morose face. The kid always looked so troubled, no matter how hard Dean tried his brother still carried the hardships of what seemed like a dozen other lives on his shoulders. 

“I wasn’t thinking,” He said finally, looking Sam in the eye, “I just wanted to cheer you up.”

The younger man smiled. He didn’t know if Dean was referring to their campfire over 25 years ago or the one that blazed between them now.

It didn’t matter.

  


They stayed by the fire till it calmly burned itself out, leaving behind a pile of dark grey ash that blew away in the morning breeze.

  


  


Two days later a farmer happened across an empty packet of marshmallows, stuffed it into his threadbare jean pockets, and swept away the remains of the fire.

  


Swept away the two imprints where the two brothers had sat.

  


The scorched earth turned back into brown soil.

  


There was no sign of a black 1967 Chevrolet Impala, a Winchester, or a single flame in site.

  


  


* * * * * * *

  



End file.
